Crossing Our Desk:

–Mt. Gox’s embattled creditors had their hopes raised only to be abruptly dashed overnight. It began with the following tweet by a Turkish investment banker called Eren Canarslan in which he heralded news from the failed bitcoin exchange:

His statement got people excited, not only because, if true, it would mean that all of the Mt. Gox’s customers’ missing 670,000 bitcoins could be returned to them, but also because he had earned himself some credibility by tweeting on March 4 that Mt. Gox had found bitcoin. Two weeks later that was followed by the announcement from the exchange that it had indeed found 200,000 coins it had previously assumed to have lost.

Mr. Canarslan was not immediately available to comment for this article.

Mt. Gox’s burned customers lit up social media platforms Twitter and Reddit, some skeptical, others inclined to believe, all presumably clinging to some hope.

And then, tantalizingly, word came of a new announcement from Mt. Gox Thursday morning in its home base of Tokyo.

Alas, the statement was a letdown. The exchange announced only that it is cooperating with law enforcement to find the missing coins. No imminent announcement of a dramatic new discovery, it would seem.

Not surprisingly, the tone on those Reddit and Twitter threads turned melancholy and angry. Mr. Canarslan became a target of complaints. (Michael J. Casey)

- Patrick Byrne, chief executive of Overstock.com, said he didn’t expect the new IRS guidelines on bitcoin to significantly raise the tax bill on the roughly $20,000 worth of bitcoin the web retailer receives each day from customers. That’s because Overstock quickly converts the virtual currency it receives into dollars, so it is not likely to realize gains or losses from holding bitcoin.

“None of this surprises me and actually it all seems fair,” Mr. Byrne said. To the extent the rule require the company to file additional reports with the government, he said, “If that’s what we have to do, we’ll do it.”

“We expect the additional clarity will have a positive effect on the adoption of this new and novel method of payment,” said Stephen Pair, co-founder of BitPay, a firm that helps retailers except bitcoin. (Ryan Tracy)

Circle Internet Financial, whose consumer platform will allow users to convert traditional currency into bitcoin and then use an account to send and receive bitcoins, said it had received an additional $17 million from venture capital investors. That brings its total raised to $26 million from investors such as Breyer Capital, Accel Partners, General Capital Partners, Oak Investment Partners and the Bitcoin Opportunity Fund.

Meanwhile, Payward Inc. announced that its online digital-currency exchange, Kraken, raised $5 million from Hummingbird Ventures while GoCoin, a global processor of payments in digital currencies, said it secured $1.5 million from an investor group led by Bitcoin Shop Inc. and former Facebook Inc. Chief Operating Officer Owen Van Natta. (Michael Casey)

In the News:

- Bitcoin ATMs are really getting around. Lamassu, the firm started by brothers Zach and Josh Harvey, says it expects to deliver at least one ATM to every continent save Antartica by May, according to an article in CoinDesk. The Harvey brothers have a place in our heart, being they were the subject of our first bitcoin story, last May. Back then, the brothers had only a prototype. It began taking orders last August, and is on track to ship 200 machines by this upcoming May. At $5,000 a pop, that’s not so bad. (Paul Vigna)